Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 01/01/08 - 14/04/08

Great to see some movement on the oil laws!!

Worth a listen, nice message from Iraq soldier.

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Update.......

DNO confident of Iraq Oil Export Licence

Oslo: Norwegian independent oil producer DNO is "quite confident" it will get a licence to export oil from Iraq this year, chief executive Helge Eide said yesterday.

DNO is the first western oil company to begin new exploration and production in post-war Iraq under a deal with the Kurdish regional authorities in the north.

"We are not involved directly with that process but there have been quite a number of positive signals which makes us quite confident that it will happen within this year," Eide said.

Eide said that after gaining an export permit, DNO could quickly boost its oil production in Iraq to about 30,000 barrels per day from nearly 7,000 barrels on average in the first two months of 2008.

"We have 90,000-100,000 in well capacity [per day] and the export facility can take 50,000 barrels. Immediately when we have exports in place, we can ramp up to 50,000 barrels - and we get 60 per cent of that," he said.

The 60 per cent is DNO's working interest in the Tawke field in the Kurdish region of north Iraq.

DNO repeated that its total untested resource potential in Iraq amounted to 1.5-2.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 0.6-1.0 billion for DNO under production sharing agreements with regional authorities in Kurdistan.

Last month DNO revised its production sharing agreement with the Kurdish authorities, effectively cutting its stake. The company said the revision was a "step in the direction of exports" as the Kurdish authorities are negotiating with Baghdad access to Iraq's northern pipeline into Turkey.

So far, DNO has sold its Iraqi oil on the local market at local prices.

Gulfnews: DNO confident of Iraq oil export licence

Will US engage with Iran on Iraq’s future?
Analysts say US appears stuck in rut trying to isolate pivotal player Iran instead of engaging with it.

Facing a new day of reckoning in Iraq next week, the soon-to-depart Bush administration appears stuck in a rut trying to isolate pivotal player Iran, analysts say.

Iran wielded its influence in intra-Shiite fighting in Iraq last week, but Washington shows no sign it can or will engage Tehran in a complex long-term political solution for Iraq, they argue.

A key test will come when the top US military and civilian leaders in Baghdad, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, testify to Congress in Washington next week about the next steps in Iraq.

"There is a pragmatic strategic interest on the part of the US in engaging with the Iranians because they are an inevitable part of both the problem and the solution in Iraq," analyst Suzanne Maloney said.

"But I can't predict that that's exactly how it's going to play out in the hearings next week," said Maloney, an Iran expert who helped shape Iraq policy at the US State Department until May last year.

She doubted it was "politically palatable" for lawmakers in an election year to suggest "talking to a government that has denied the Holocaust, threatened to eradicate Israel," and challenged US interests and values abroad.

Senator Joseph Biden, who will chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, was concerned Tuesday about Iran's role in the latest events but did not mention it by name when he recommended a new approach.

The Democratic lawmaker doubted President George W. Bush's claim that the crackdown by the US-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Shiite militiamen marked a "defining moment" in Iraq's history.

When reporters asked whether the United States or Iran was the ultimate winner, he cited media reports that Iran brokered the ceasefire between forces led by Maliki, a Shiite, and Moqtada al-Sadr's anti-American Mahdi Army.

"If that's true, I'm not sure how the president views that as such a defining moment," Biden said.

He also wondered whether the administration had a plan for stabilizing Iraq over the next four years and what it will do with the 30,000 extra troops sent as part of a surge Bush announced 15 months ago.

He recalled that when they testified here last September, Petraeus and Crocker said the surge would "start to wind down this spring," when they would recommend a future course of action to the president.

"And the first question is, what has the surge accomplished? And the second is, where do we go from here?" Biden asked.

And he stressed a new approach.

"I just think that we need a diplomatic surge, we need to engage major - other major powers, Iraq's neighbors and the UN in the search for a solution which this administration has utterly neglected," Biden said.

In December 2006, the Iraq Study Group, a high-profile bipartisan panel, recommended, among other things, that the United States engage Iran and Syria in a solution for Iraq and withdraw most US combat troops by early 2008.

The Bush administration ignored these recommendations.

Analysts like Rohan Gunaratna from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore say Iran is pivotal to a solution.

"Although the president of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) appears very irresponsible..., I believe it's so important for the United States to speak to Iran," Gunaratna said.

He said Iran is not only key to settling intra-Shiite rivalries as it had influence with all Shiite groups, including those backing Maliki, but was needed to bridge the broader divide among Shiia, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Analysts and politicians alike lament that the Iraqi leadership has failed to do more to promote reconciliation during the reduction in violence partly linked to the troop surge.

Although the United States has had intermittent low-level talks with Iran, it missed a chance to fully engage with Tehran when its supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei made an unprecedented call for talks in 2006, Maloney said.

The United States at the time was focused on rallying the international community into isolating Iran over its disputed nuclear program, she said.

Maloney, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, suspects Iran will now just wait for the next US administration to consider any move toward real dialogue.

Will US engage with Iran on Iraq’s future? | Iraq Updates

President Talabani Receives Crocker and Petraeus

President Jalal Talabani received yesterday in his residence in Baghdad the US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker and The Commander of The Multi-National Forces in Iraq General David Petraeus.

Iraq’s general situation was discussed in the meeting. President Talabani said that the whole situation, developments and achievements which took place in Iraq must be included in the report which will be presented by Crocker and Petraeus to the Congress.

On the other hand, Crocker and Petraeus appreciated President Talabani’s efforts in solving the unresolved issues and in making the viewpoints closer.

The meeting was attended by the Iraqi Vice President Dr. Adel Abdel Mahdi, Deputy PM Dr. Barham Ahmed Salih and the Minister of Water Resources Dr. Abdul Latif Rasheed.

PUKmedia :: English - President Talabani Receives Crocker and Petraeus

Petraeus to Update Congress on Iraq

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will not promise Congress large troop withdrawals beyond July, saying it is too soon to make decisions about the second half of the year, defense officials say.

Petraeus will tell Congress next week the U.S. military needs time to evaluate security conditions throughout Iraq before committing to more large troop reductions in 2008.

That assessment period, often referred to as a "pause" in withdrawals, has assumed greater significance for Pentagon officials after last week's clashes in Baghdad and Basra between Iraqi forces and Shi'ite militiaman -- fighting that raised doubts about the skill of U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers.

"It is the kind of violence and lack of security that would certainly drive an assessment of what we would do after that (pause in withdrawals)," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The period of consolidation and evaluation will take place and we'll take recommendations based on conditions on the ground there," Mullen said ahead of Petraeus' testimony.

That call for a pause will likely rile Democrats and other opponents of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, who have latched onto the Basra fighting as a sign the increase or "surge" of U.S. troops last year failed to move Iraqis any closer to security or political stability.

"I think it's time we take a sober look," said Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.

"My question really is ... not whether the surge has tactically worked or not. Has the purpose of the surge been accomplished?"

The Pentagon is pulling five brigades, about 20,000 combat troops, out of Iraq under plans announced last year. Two of the five have already left.

The reduction will bring the number of combat troops down to the level of U.S. forces in Iraq before the "surge."

The United States has 158,000 troops in Iraq now and Petraeus is expected to tell Congress exactly how many troops will be in Iraq when current reductions are finished in July.

He may discuss the possibility of restarting withdrawals and the potential pace of any drawdown. But an assessment period will come first, according to officials who say the pause could last at least a month and perhaps much longer.

U.S. troop levels could, in fact, remain above 130,000 when a new president takes office in January 2009.

The pause will also add stress to an already strained U.S. force -- a problem often voiced by the chiefs of America's military branches, especially the Army. It could delay Pentagon efforts to get soldiers back to 12-month deployments, down from the 15-month tours they now serve in Iraq.

SURGE SUCCESS?

Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will also be asked by lawmakers during the hearings next Tuesday and Wednesday to assess the success of the surge strategy.

The addition of combat troops last year has been credited with lowering attacks and deaths, especially in Baghdad. That led some U.S. officials to declare the surge a military success.

But other factors helped improve security too, including Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's order for his Mehdi Army militia to cease fire and a decision by Sunni leaders in Anbar to join U.S. and Iraqi forces in their fight against al Qaeda.

The New York Times, quoting senior U.S. officials, reported that a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq showed significant security improvements and progress toward resolving sectarian divisions. But the report added that security was still fragile and that extremist groups remained capable of big attacks, the officials told the Times.

"The N.I.E. update confirmed that the surge strategy the president announced in January of last year is working," a senior administration official told the Times in its Friday edition.

The period of reduced violence was supposed to create the calm needed for Iraqi politicians to move forward on measures seen by Washington as critical to long-term stability.

Progress, however, has been slow despite security gains.

The intra-Shi'ite violence in Basra, which led Britain to delay its withdrawal, appears to have underscored how far Iraqi factions are from reconciliation, some analysts said.

"The goal is a political deal and while in some areas you've seen the violence drop, we are nowhere near a political settlement," said retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, professor at Yale University.

"The recent incursions into Basra by (Prime Minister Nuri al-)Maliki's army and the fighting in Baghdad show you that even the Shia camp is fragmented, strongly fragmented, not anywhere near a political consolidation, not to mention the Kurds and the Sunnis."

Petraeus, who delayed his arrival in Washington this week due to the Basra violence, has already made his recommendations on the next phase of the war to President George W. Bush.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to testify before Congress on Thursday, after Petraeus is done.

PUKmedia :: English - Petraeus to Update Congress on Iraq

Russia might lose competition for oil investment in Iraq

President of the International Committee in the Russian Federation Council, Mikhail Margilov, announced at a meeting in the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the "round table", devoted to the question of Russian reputation of working abroad, that Russia may lose the competition for the right to participate in exploiting Iraqi oilfields. The Russian Member of Parliament said, "It is clear that shares to investment Iraqi fields will soon be distributed and we might come out of this competition empty handed, because we do not have active contacts with the active political forces in Iraq.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5814

Oil exports from southern Iraq amounts to about 400 million barrels per day

Navigation Agents announced that oil exports from southern Iraq amounted to about 400 million barrels a day to stabilize at same rate of last Monday. Iraq pumps about three quarters of oil exports from the port of Basrah at a million and a half million barrels per day on average. An official in the Iraqi oil sector confirmed that oil production and exports from the South declined by about one hundred thousand barrels per day since the sabotage attack on the pipeline last week. Iraq intends to return the flow of oil to its usual on Tuesday.


http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5816

Saudi seize control of the Iraqi export pipeline

Ministry of Oil uncovered that the Saudi side has seized control of the export pipeline of Iraqi crude oil which passes through its territory to the Red Sea. The ministry said that even if Kurdistan region signed contracts with international companies to invest in oil, it would not be able to export because neighboring countries are not prepared for the passage of these quantities through their territory and neighboring countries agreed on this matter without exerting pressure upon them by the ministry.

An official source in the Oil Ministry refused to disclose his name said that the Iraqi- Saudi oil pipeline is one of the strategic lines because it has a capacity of more than one million and a half barrels a day and it was installed with Iraqi funds hundred percent, in addition to being used for exporting Iraqi crude oil. He added that what the Saudi side has done is unjustified; Iraq should be allowed to use this pipeline which belongs to it in the first place. Probably the reason for Saudi not allowing the exploitation of the pipeline is financial due to Saudi debt owed by Iraq.

On the other hand, Falah Al-Khawaja, director of the Oil Projects Company in the ministry, revealed that Kurdistan Regional Government prevented the ministry's cadre from doing their job in the project of building Koysinjaq liquidator, as well as preventing them form developing Kurrmur gas field, in the northern region, which the ministry was considering investing it and linking it to Qatar gas pipe; it even contracted with the Indian company B.G.R on this basis, but Kurdistan's insistence on its position caused the ministry a problem and compelled it to discuss the change of the contract and the investment site with the company. He noted that the Government of Kurdistan has gone so far as to prevent the ministry's cadre from developing Dome Kurmalah within Kirkuk oil field. The Cabinet has been informed of all these issues and of the continuation of Kurdistan Government to conclude oil contracts with international companies.

Al-Khawaja confirmed that all companies contracted with will be boycotted and any contracts signed must be approved by the central government in Baghdad; particularly since the ministry itself did not sign any investment contract up to this moment and it merely concluded service contracts. He explained that even though Kurdistan Government invested fields and oil reservoirs, it can not export it through Iraqi neighboring countries because these countries have agreed not to allow the passage of Iraqi oil through their territories if it was not exported by the Iraqi Company of Oil Products Marketing (SOMO) which is the only authorized body to so. Therefore, we wish of Kurdistan Government to reconsider this matter because the real wealth is not in its region alone, but in different parts of Iraq.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5818

Maliki unveils new Basra Plan

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki outlined a seven-point plan for Basra following operations pitting Iraqi security forces against Shiite militias.

Maliki said in a statement Wednesday the security operation in Basra was part of a broader plan to strengthen coordination with Baghdad and initiate long-term reconstruction projects in the area, a statement from his Islamic Dawa Party said.

The plan outlines increased security initiatives, measures taken against the "exploitation of Basra's resources," the restoration of Baghdad's control over seized government buildings and the conversion of former government palaces into places of tourism.

Maliki said in a statement the security situation now in Basra provided "a necessary step" for reconstruction, noting the prior "situation in Basra prevented these things from occurring."

Ali al-Dabbagh, the spokesman for the Iraqi government, said the Maliki government viewed the Basra operation as a "crucial" step toward securing the rule of law, Voices of Iraq said.

Maliki returned to Baghdad Tuesday following nearly a week of confrontation with Shiite militias loyal to Moqtada Sadr, the Badr Organization -- the military wing of cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq -- and other paramilitary units.

Basra, situated in the oil-rich southern region of Iraq, experienced relative calm Wednesday.

Maliki unveils new Basra plan - UPI.com